Abstract [en]

The aim of this one-year master thesis in archival science was to examine how municipalities take regulations concerning public records into account when they use Facebook. Another aim was to examine the involvement of archivists, registrars or similar staff in the management of the regulations. Since Swedish archival theory and practice has a close connection to the application of these regulations, such an examination was hopefully going to reveal tendencies of importance for archival science. The method used to collect information was a web questionnaire and the result was based on answers from 21 municipalities with an official Facebook page. The questionnaire showed that six of the municipalities regarded documents originating from their Facebook page as public records. Three did not, and a large group had not yet decided how to treat these documents. Only three municipalities did archive documents from Facebook. The involvement of archivists, registrars and similar personnel was generally very small, even though regulations concerning public records had more often been taken into account in the municipalities that had informed this personnel about the use of an official Facebook page. The difference in management between the municipalities was together with the demand for national guiding principles indicating difficulties in applying the regulations to social medias like Facebook. The fact that most of the municipalities that had taken the regulations into account had come to the conclusion that Facebook generated public records, together with the fact that national guiding principles presented during the work with this thesis had the same interpretation, indicated that documents originating from Facebook will be a part of Swedish public records in the future. The difference in management and the demand for guidance also indicated a need for better division of responsibilities and a more active approach in the future, to ensure that the regulations concerning public records are taken into account early and correctly when authorities starts to use new medias.